Process of manufacturing illuminating-gas.



No. 707,783. Patented Aug. 26, 1902.

c. w. lsBELL.

PROCESS 0F MANUFACTURING ILLUMINATING GAS.

(Application led June 13, 1901.)

(No Model.)

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CHARLES V. ISI-SELL, OF NEXV YORK, N. Y.

PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING lLLUNllNATlNG-GAS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent N o. 707,783, dated August 26, 1902. Application filed June 13, 1901. Serial No. 64.365. (No specimens.)

''O all whom it' may concern:

Be it known that I, CHARLES W.. IsBELL, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the borough of Manhattan, in the city and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement Relating to the Manufacture of Illuminating-Gas, of which the following is a specification.

The-object of thisinvention is to facilitate the discharge from the retorts employed in the manufacture of illu minating-gas from bituminous coal of the residual coke resulting from such manufacture. .It is Well known that in such manufacture the coal in changing to coke expands and tends to so tighten itself against the sides of the retort as to require the exertion of considerable force for its removal. For the purpose of loosening the coke from the retort after all or as much as desirable of the gas suitable for illumination has been obtained therefrom the said invention consists in the introduction into the retort, especially along the sidesthereof, of steam, preferably superheated, for the purpose of producing the decomposition or combustion and conversion into gas of portions of the coke close to the sides of the retort, and thereby loosening the body or greater portion thereof.

This invention is applicable with especial advantage to upright gas-retorts, in which the expansion of the charge is productive of greater ditticulty of discharge, but from which when the charge is loosened,'as above mentioned, the coke may drop out by gravitation on the opening of the retort at the bottom.

Figure 1 represents a vertical section of an apparatus embodying several upright retorts for carrying out my invention; Fig. 2, a horizontal section of the same in the line 2 2 of Fig. 1. Figs. 3 and 4 represent vertical sections at right angles to each other of the lower part of a retort and the means for supplying steam thereto.

o o designate the retorts, having their interior surfaces grooved to form channels 14, running directly from bottom to top. These grooved retorts may be of any suitable horizontal sectional form and so far as their exteriors are considered may be of any suitable construction and set in any manner, but are herein represented as built of fire-brick into of loosening said residue.

the same structure with their heating-chamber b of masonry, which is supported on a floor-plate c and is in communication with an external heating-furnace g through a i'lue h and with a chimneyt through lues 12, as shown in Figs. 1 and 2. The said retorts are represented as each provided with an iron head or mouthpiecej and With an iron bottom 7o, the said head being fitted with a sliding lid l, which is opened for charging, and the said bottom being, for the purpose of discharging, hinged, as shown at 13, to the if'loorplate c. When closed, the hinged bottom or discharging-lid 7t' is secured by swinging hooks a, pivoted to the floor-plate. On the inner face of said bottom or lid there is carried, by supports 19, a grate u, upon which the charge rests some distance above the bottom or lid. The said bottom or lid is also made hollow to form a steam-chamber 16, from which, by the opening of a valve 27 after allor as much as desirable of the gas has been eliminated from the coal in the retorts, leaving only a residue of coke, and While said residue is at an incandescent heat, I introduce steam into the retort for the purpose To provide for this introduction of steam into the chambers 16, a fixed pipe o runs under the iioor-plate c, and from this pipe flexible branch pipes 22 run one to the chamber 16 of each lid k. The saidpipe .fr is represented in Fig. 1 as receiving steam through a superheating-coily,

Which is arranged in a small heating-chamber in the rear wall of the furnace to be heated by the heat of the furnace. The channels 14 in these retorts are of such width and depth that when the retort is charged with the coal ordinarily used for the manufacture of coal-gas the said coal will not ill the said channels, but even when it expands, as it naturally does in the process, it will leave Vthe said channels partly unobstructed, so

that the steam introduced into the retort for the purpose of my invention will rinda ready upward passage through said channels to the outlets n, provided in the retort-heady" and Will produce such decomposition or combustion of the coke in the said channels and in the contiguous parts of the retort, close to the sides thereof, as to quickly so loosen the residue that on the opening of the lids lo it may ICC coke of a sufficient quantity of steam to pro- 15 duce the decomposition or combustion and conversion into gas of that portion of said coke contiguous to the sides of the retort, substantially as herein described.

1n testimony that I claim the foregoing as 2o my invention I have signed my name, in presence of two witnesses, this 5th day of June, 1901.

CHAS. W. ISBELL.

Witnesses:

FREDK. HAYNEs, LIDA M. EGBERT. 

